Systems and methods for determining organ wall mass by three-dimensional ultrasound

Abstract

An ultrasound system and method to measure an organ wall weight and mass. When the organ is a bladder, a bladder weight (UEBW) is determined using three-dimensional ultrasound imaging that is acquired using a hand-held or machine controlled ultrasound transceiver. The infravesical region of the bladder is delineated on this 3D data set to enable the calculation of urine volume and the bladder surface area. The outer anterior wall of the bladder is delineated to enable the calculation of the bladder wall thickness (BWT). The UEBW is calculated as a product of the bladder surface area, the bladder wall thickness, and the bladder wall specific gravity.

Description

PRIORITY CLAIM [0001] This application claims priority to U.S. provisional patent application Ser. No. 60 / 633,485 filed Dec. 6, 2004. [0002] This application is a continuation-in-part of and claims priority to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11 / 213,284 filed Aug. 26, 2005. [0003] This application claims priority to and is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11 / 119,355 filed Apr. 29, 2005, which claims priority to U.S. provisional patent application Ser. No. 60 / 566,127 filed Apr. 30, 2004. This application also claims priority to and is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10 / 701,955 filed Nov. 5, 2003, which in turn claims priority to and is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10 / 443,126 filed May 20, 2003. [0004] This application claims priority to and is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11 / 061,867 filed Feb. 17, 2005, which claims priority to U.S. provisional patent application Ser. No. ...

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Problems solved by technology

Moreover, the existing 2D methods are manually based, utilizing leading edge-to-leading edge of opposing bladder walls laboriously executed upon a series of two-dimensional images, and are fraught with analytical inaccuracies (H. Miyashita, M. Kojima, and T. Miki, “Ultrasonic measurement of bladder weight as a possible predictor of acute urinary retention in men with lower urinary tract symptoms suggestive of benign prostate hyperplasia”, Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology 2002, 28(8): 985-990; M. Oelke, K. Hofner, B. Wiese, V. Gruneweld, and U. Jonas, “Increase in detrusor wall thickness indicates bladder outlet obstruction in men,”World J. of Urology, 2002, 19(6), 443-452; L. Muller, T. Bergstrom, M. Hellstrom, E. Svensson, and B. Jacobson, “Standardized ultrasound method for assessing detrusor muscle thickness in children,” J. Urol., 200, 164: 134-138; and Naya, M. Kojima, H. Honjyo, A. Ochiai, O. Ukimura, and H. Watanabe, “Intraobserver and interobserver variance in the measurement of ultrasound-estimated bladder weight,”Ultrasound in Med.

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